


Drink-Drowned

by Roselightfairy



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Gen, Hangover, Hurt/Comfort, Minas Tirith, Sea-longing (Tolkien), Self-Destruction, Three Hunters, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:41:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28333281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy
Summary: Gimli bit back an oath and hauled on the dead-weight of Legolas’s waist, heaving him up to drape him more solidly over his shoulders again. “Mahal, you have done a number on yourself, haven’t you,” he muttered. His own amusement was slipping away from him as surely as Legolas’s body, and Gimli only had the concentration to keep one of them from crashing to the ground. “What prompted this?”Legolas did not answer this question either.When they discover Legolas in the aftermath of a night of drinking, Gimli and Aragorn learn that the sea-longing has been wearing on their friend's soul more heavily than he has shared with them. Though they can't take away his pain, they can at least be there to take him home and comfort him afterwards - and for as long as they can.
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel & Gimli (Son of Glóin) & Legolas Greenleaf
Comments: 19
Kudos: 77





	Drink-Drowned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeHeerKonijn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeHeerKonijn/gifts).



> DHK: *gifts me [sweet, wonderfully atmospheric fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226175) full of clever punchlines and warm friendships*  
> Me: *gifts her extensive wallows in misery and self-destruction complete with lots of internal monologue*
> 
> But luckily, she’s as much of an indulgent hedonist as I am when it comes to whump, and this is another scenario we envisioned together in our chat, one I’ve been wanting to write for awhile. Just like [Light into Gray](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27582892), this fic addresses self-destructive tendencies as a result of sea-longing, but it’s a little more about Three Hunters friendship than Legolas/Gimli as a pairing. Be warned for all the things mentioned in the tags. And thank you, Deheer, for sharing your generosity, patience, and brilliance with me. I am so grateful for all the blatherings, the shared suffering, and the creative flow. I hope you enjoy this. <3

“Gimli! _Gimli!_ ”

Gimli started at the sound of his name, whirling and nearly tripping over his own feet, his toes jamming against the cracked cobbles of the Minas Tirith street. It was rare for him to stumble so, even on such inferior stonework, but the shout of his name had taken him off guard. He ought to be accustomed by now to being hailed before laying eyes on the caller; the experience seemed part and parcel of calling an elf one’s dearest friend, but –

But usually it was not so _loud_.

Nor was it usually accompanied, he realized as he regained his balance, by Aragorn’s voice, in a tone of long-strained patience. “Yes, Legolas, he can hear you.”

Gimli righted himself at last and looked up from the treacherous ground, seeking the source of his friends’ voices. Thus occupied, he had given little thought to what he might see, but was nevertheless taken off guard by the two-headed, many-limbed form that greeted him. Legolas and Aragorn seemed fused together in a hunched and twisted silhouette against the dingy stone wall and the cloudy night, a single-bodied figure waving frantically at Gimli with Legolas’s hand.

Gimli blinked the image into clearer focus: Legolas was draped over a weary-looking Aragorn, his other arm slung over his shoulder. Aragorn was clearly supporting the bulk of the elf’s weight; those light shoes barely touched the cobbles and Aragorn himself swayed, knocked off balance by his burden and Legolas’s flailing hand, weaving like a drunken man –

But clearly he was not the drunken man here.

“But it is Gimli!” Legolas insisted, his too-loud voice stumbling over the Westron words, his free hand still groping aimlessly about in the air. “Gimli, my friend! Well met by moonlight!” He was beaming as though seeing Gimli was all he had needed to make his happiness complete, an expression at odds with the tight set of Aragorn’s own jaw. “How do you fare on this marvelous summer night?”

Gimli could only stare.

He had never expected to see Legolas drunk. He had tried it once, in Ithilien on deliveries of wine in the relief at the end of the war, and had watched Merry try him as well in their shared house in Minas Tirith – and each time Legolas had matched his challenger easily, still fresh-faced when Gimli could no longer see straight, and laughed that this liquor lacked all the potency of his favored wine at home. The _amount_ he must have needed to reach this point –

Well. Gimli was almost sorry he had missed the spectacle. Still, at least he could bear witness to the aftermath.

“Gimli,” said Aragorn, and Gimli shook himself free of his ponderings and darted over to help.

His height made taking Legolas’s other arm impractical, but he slung his arm around the elf’s waist, thinking to help support him. Legolas, it seemed, had other ideas. He abandoned Aragorn as soon as Gimli touched him, sloughing away from the taller man like a shed skin and slumping onto Gimli’s shoulders instead.

Gimli grunted as the elf’s weight settled onto him – ah, Aragorn had been more than half-carrying him, then – and flailed in the effort to find them a more comfortable position. It was not so much Legolas’s weight that was the problem – he was lighter than any dwarf Gimli had had to help home after a few too many – but the _length_ of him, the unwieldy assortment of long limbs and long torso that would not stay still long enough for Gimli to sort himself out.

“Elves,” he grumbled. “So inconveniently shaped. It is no wonder you were Eru’s first draft.”

He chuckled at his own jest and even Aragorn snorted beside him – but Legolas collapsed into high-pitched, breathless giggles, sliding lower down Gimli’s body and clinging to his shoulders to hold himself up. Gimli’s smile crumpled in on itself, his brow furrowing as he clutched at Legolas’s waist to keep him from sliding all the way to the ground.

“Legolas,” he said cautiously. “Are you” –

“Eru’s first draft,” choked Legolas, letting go of Gimli with one hand to slap his shoulder and nearly tumbling the rest of the way down.

Gimli bit back an oath and hauled on the dead-weight of Legolas’s waist, heaving him up to drape him more solidly over his shoulders again. “Mahal, you have done a number on yourself, haven’t you,” he muttered. His own amusement was slipping away from him as surely as Legolas’s body, and Gimli only had the concentration to keep one of them from crashing to the ground. “What prompted this?”

Legolas did not answer this question either, still shaking and snorting with laughter that sounded more eerily hollow every moment. Gimli turned to Aragorn as best he could from under his too-long cloak of wriggling elf. “How long have you been with him?”

“A few moments only,” Aragorn said wearily. “I fetched him from a tavern one level down from here, and it was all I could do to convince him to leave.”

“Drinking alone, then,” Gimli murmured. He had seen many a friend deep in his cups, but then he had always been present for the drinking and more than a little tipsy himself. At those times, helpless laughter such as this was only natural – brought on as much by the pleasure of camaraderie as by the strength of the drink. But Legolas had not sought any of them out for companionship, and his laughter now felt echoing and empty, absent any true mirth.

“So it seems,” said Aragorn. “Word of a disturbance in the tavern made its way to me – those who reported it were eager to assure me that they would not usually require my aid for a troublesome guest, but they knew this was a personal friend of mine and a hero from the war. And I think none of them wished to test themselves against an elf, though I warrant a strong wind would suffice to take him off his feet.”

“I resent that,” Legolas chimed in – making Gimli start; had he been listening? If so, he had only retained part of their conversation, for he writhed now in the effort to face Aragorn (and making Gimli scramble again to prop him up), his tone one of righteous indignation. “Wood-elves are exsh – excep – very sure-footed.” He giggled again. “No gale of wind could take me off my feet.” Gimli opened his mouth to point out that Legolas was not, strictly speaking, _on_ his feet, but Legolas was already continuing. “Perhaps a wave . . .”

His voice trailed off and the laughter died.

And here it was. The very air seemed to chill around them and a weight dropped into Gimli’s belly, heavier by far than the weight of Legolas’s body on his shoulders. He had seen this before, the plunge from giddy lightness to leaden despair, but never had merely bearing witness felt like such a blow. Perhaps it was the eternal mystery of elfkind, for though Gimli knew that Legolas felt deeply, the nature of his emotions was still a mystery to him: a vein of fragile ore he did not dare to tap, lest he shatter something.

And yet he must try, for Legolas was still and silent against him, even his breathing barely audible. He might shatter if Gimli spoke, but he could no longer bear to say nothing. “Legolas?”

“A wave, yes.” The voice was distant and thin, a wisp of fog dissolving in the slightest breeze. “It all moves in waves, does it not? Time . . . the sea . . . and what is the difference? Both sweep us apart just as surely.”

 _The sea_. The lament was familiar by now – Legolas had spoken of it before in wistful tones, in words wrapped in the grand mystery of elven emotion: so unfamiliar and distant that Gimli did not know how to ask in plain speech what distressed him so. He had grasped that Legolas had been afflicted by some elven longing, but he had never quite understood – never quite found the words to ask – what it meant; how deep the sorrow ran. To hear it now –

“The sea, the sea, the endless sea,” Legolas whispered, a haunting tuneless melody. “Sunderer of lives, of fates, of loves – she whispers to me, Gimli; she promises to give what I cannot refuse by taking what I cannot yield – and yet, what will time not take from me anyway? Ai, Aman . . .” He lapsed into his own tongue then, and Gimli did not understand the words that followed.

He ought to have asked earlier. Aragorn or Gandalf might have been able to explain to him what this sea-longing meant, to warn him what to expect – but mostly, he ought to have asked Legolas to tell him more. For clearly he had yearned to speak of this – days’ worth of hints lined themselves up in Gimli’s memory – but had not been invited to do so, and at last at his breaking point he had sought out solitude and comfort at the bottom of a bottle – or many.

Guilt and shared sorrow washed over Gimli like their own wave; struggling under Legolas’s weight, he could not find his footing to withstand it, and above him Legolas shuddered and began to weep.

Gimli did not even have a hand free to pat him uncertainly on the back. He looked over at Aragorn helplessly, and Aragorn only shrugged back.

“Ah, Gimli,” Legolas sighed, and he slumped lower – again Gimli sought to boost him up before he realized that Legolas was trying to wrap his arms around his neck, sagging until his knees hovered a few inches above the ground, his weight threatening to pull them both into an ungainly pile on the cobbles. “Gimli, my dearest friend – how am I to go on when you have left me? How are any of us to go on?” He buried his damp face in Gimli’s neck, tears leaking into his beard. “We must be swept apart; the sea reminds me of it every day – time awaits the whims of no mortal or elf; it slips away faster with every moment that passes, cruel and ruthless; I clutch at it and it spills like seawater through my fingers; ai” –

Gimli could not speak. There were words, doubtless, that could be used to bridge the vast chasm that Legolas’s words strove to open between them; there must be a way to ease this despair – but he could not find it, not now. Not in the face of the magnitude of Legolas’s sorrow, and surely not when he was so stewed in drink that his feet could not bear his own weight. No words would find purchase within Legolas’s heart, not tonight.

“Here,” Aragorn said, sinking to his knees beside Gimli and placing a firm hand on Legolas’s back. Any passerby might be surprised, Gimli thought, to see the king kneeling on the dirty fractured cobbles of a city street – but then, that was why they were so fortunate to have Aragorn now. “Come here, Legolas. Let us get you into bed.”

“Will that – help him?” Gimli could not reconcile the strange open-eyed dream state that was Legolas’s preferred form of repose with the heavy slumber of a drunken dwarf or man. “Do elves” –

“He will sleep,” said Aragorn grimly. “I have never seen a Mirkwood elf so heavily imbibed before, but elves of Imladris are fond enough of wine that I can be sure of that much. Up you get.” He had been gently prying at Legolas’s fingers as he spoke and now heaved the elf up over his shoulder, standing in the same swift motion. Legolas groped weakly for Gimli’s shoulders as he was peeled away, but shifted his clinging arms easily enough to Aragorn once he had been lifted clear.

It only made sense, after all, for Aragorn to carry him home; he was tall enough that Legolas’s legs would not drag on the ground. Gimli should have been glad to be relieved of his weight; his shoulders certainly thanked him, but all the same the rush of air at the absence of Legolas’s body felt cool against his skin and the damp patch Legolas had left on his neck. He trailed uselessly after Aragorn, whose strides made two of Gimli’s even burdened by the elf now mumbling incomprehensibly into his hair. He would respond with a word or two of his own from time to time – something even Gimli could understand from the placating tone and simple syllables must be the equivalent of, “There, there.” It did not matter what either of them said – Legolas’s voice grew slower and sleepier until finally he was nodding over Aragorn’s shoulder.

Aragorn let out a sigh of relief. “He is lighter when unconscious, somehow,” he said. “Have you ever seen the like?”

“Perhaps it is the absence of the flailing.” It was all the wryness Gimli could muster; that heaviness in his stomach threatened to pin him to the ground and his feet dragged even as he hastened to keep up with his friend. “Aragorn, is he – I did not know” – What did he not know? He could hardly express even to himself what was missing, that gap that Legolas’s words had opened up in his thoughts, and how was he to explain a thing he could not name?

“That he had been so affected?” It would have been so easy to resent Aragorn in this moment, seeing the ease with which he handled Legolas while Gimli himself could not even identify what he wished to say. But Aragorn’s voice was so full of sympathy, of shared pain, that any trace of envy drained away and then it was just the two of them and mutual worry for a shared friend. “I did not know it myself, but I was not without concern. I have seen elves leave Rivendell for the Havens before, and Legolas’s words of the sea sounded like to what I heard from others who have sailed. But he would not speak of it further when I pressed him – I think he will tell us only when he chooses to do so.”

“Or he will not tell us at all,” Gimli grumbled, “and will instead attempt to drown the sorrow of the sea in an entirely new form of poison.” The saying struck him as bitterly amusing now, and he had to check his tongue before emulating Legolas with his own fit of mirthless laughter. “Perhaps you had best instruct the barkeeps in the city to warn us next time an elf enters their establishment.”

“Perhaps,” said Aragorn. “Though I tend to think tomorrow morning will be punishment enough for him not to repeat this adventure.”

* * *

The first thing Gimli realized when he woke up was that he was warm.

Too warm. _Uncommonly_ warm, in a way that could not be explained solely by the bundle of blankets and the sun streaming through the windows, in a way that could only mean –

Ah, yes.

He opened his eyes.

He was not in his own bedchamber in the Fellowship’s house, but in a much grander bedroom and a far larger bed. The gauzy curtains about the bed had been parted to let light stream in from the open window. A dark figure was all that interrupted the flow of sunlight, a figure that resolved itself into a barefoot and disheveled Aragorn as Gimli blinked his eyes clear and squinted in the light.

Of course – that was why the bed was so large, the window so wide, the sunlight so near. Gimli lay in the king’s bedroom at the top of the tower on the highest level of the city, and Aragorn was gazing out the window over the city. And beside Gimli . . .

Legolas lay still asleep in the bed, turned onto his side and half-draped over Gimli, clinging just as he had the night before. His face was mashed into the pillow so that only one eye was visible, but it was closed still, his mouth slightly open, his breathing deep and even.

Gimli had rarely seen Legolas sleep this way, undignified and abandoned, without the watchful poise of his open-eyed dreaming. He was far less composed this way – but more peaceful, Gimli thought, the distress of last night undetectable on his features except for the smudged crust of tearstains on his cheeks and the swollen skin around his eyes.

Last night. Gimli remembered it now – remembered how Legolas had woken up just in time to resist being taken to their shared house, protesting in slurred speech that he did not want to explain himself to their friends. As though the palace staff would be a kinder audience! – but Aragorn had sighed, heaved him up onto his shoulders again, and led them to his own bedroom. And then Legolas had clung to them both when they would have left him to sleep it off in Aragorn’s bed alone –

Gimli sighed at the memory, and Aragorn looked over from the window. “Good morning,” he said with a tired smile.

“And you.” Gimli glanced down at Legolas’s arm, heavy over his chest. “I have never woken to find him still asleep.”

“Nor have I,” said Aragorn. “But perhaps his body knows he will regret when he finally wakes up.”

Gimli grimaced at the thought. If Aragorn indeed had as much experience with such things as he claimed – and it seemed he did, for he had predicted Legolas’s heavy sleep well enough – then he must be right that elves suffered as much on the morning after as any other race. And given the extent of Legolas’s indulgences last night –

Well. “I can only imagine,” he murmured.

Aragorn chuckled softly and came to stand at the end of the bed. “And how do you fare this morning?” he asked. He glanced down at where Legolas had wrapped himself around Gimli. “It seems you have acquired an extra blanket.”

Gimli laughed softly, careful to keep from jostling Legolas. “And a very warm blanket indeed,” he said. “But I fare much better than he will, doubtless. Although” – Ah. Sensation had stepped back in favor of memory and observation, but a certain bodily need had begun to assert itself. He had no desire to disrupt Legolas’s rest, but as soon as he noticed it, it became impossible to think about anything else. Again he was grateful that he had spent weeks traveling with Aragorn, that they had all seen one another in various states of indignity and undress. “I need to relieve myself. Do you have” –

“There is a chamber pot in the adjoining room.” Aragorn nodded to the side and Gimli twisted his head as best he could with his restricted range of motion – ah, there was a discreet folding door tucked away into a corner of the room, perfectly located for washing and other private matters. “I wish you the best of luck in reaching it.”

Gimli made a face at him and then looked back down at where Legolas’s limbs were tangled around him. Dwarves were known for the skill of their hands and the delicacy of their work; surely he ought to be able to pry Legolas off him without disturbing his rest. He could see a path – if he just lifted the limp wrist and then rolled out from under it, perhaps he could replace his body with a pillow –

But he had not counted on elven sensitivity, even as senseless as Legolas appeared to be. No sooner had Gimli’s fingers closed over his forearm to lift it than Legolas stirred and grumbled, smacking his lips against the pillow.

Gimli froze, but the damage was done. Legolas snuffled, then shifted, tilting his head towards Gimli and exposing the patterns pressed into his skin by creases in the pillow. His eyes cracked open, and he let out a long, low groan before closing them again and burying his face fully into the pillow once more.

“Legolas?” Gimli said tentatively when Legolas did not move – his back remained rigid enough that Gimli was certain he had not fallen back asleep.

“Oh,” Legolas moaned. “Not so loud.”

Gimli did not notice that Aragorn had left the room until he was back, holding the chamber pot he must have fetched from the adjoining chamber while Gimli was busy trying to ease himself free of Legolas’s hold. He stared up at Aragorn, unsure whether to feel offended or embarrassed or bewildered. “I could have gotten it on my” –

But Aragorn shook his head, a wry smile touching his lips. “Did I say it was for you?”

 _Ah._ Gimli looked over at the elf beside him – who had, he noticed now, released Gimli in favor of pressing both hands to his own head. The urgency of Gimli’s own bodily needs had receded somewhat in the event of Legolas’s waking, but he thought it prudent to sit up anyway, leaving Legolas’s path to the edge of the bed clear should he need it.

It was a prescient thought. The mattress shifted as Gimli sat up and Legolas groaned again, then shot upright, one hand flying to his mouth and the other groping in the air, seeking purchase on nothing. Aragorn set the chamber pot on the floor beside the bed and Legolas lurched forward, seized the rim with his free hand, and proceeded to violently empty the contents of his stomach.

It would have been a good time for Gimli to slip away into the other room to ease himself, but the pot in question was in use, and it felt callous to the point of cruel to abandon his friend at such a moment. He gathered the elf’s hair back instead, holding it out of Legolas’s face until he gave another heartfelt groan and straightened, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“I see now why you begged us not to take you to the shared house,” Gimli remarked. It would have shaken their companions indeed to witness such a sight – Legolas had never appeared _composed_ , exactly, not by dwarven standards, but he had always seemed generally in control of himself. For the sake of their friends’ trust and Legolas’s own pride, Gimli was glad that he and Aragorn were the only witnesses to this now.

Legolas grunted. “Did I?” He hunched over to prop his elbows on his knees, his fingers raking into his tousled hair. “Where are we now, then?”

“In my chambers,” said Aragorn, and Legolas’s head snapped up – only for him to wince and clutch at it again. “It seemed the only place to bring you after you protested your own room so vehemently. How much do you remember?”

Legolas did not answer.

Gimli shifted uneasily. On the one hand, he did not want to risk missing even a moment of whatever Legolas might tell them – that same helpless feeling as last night had surfaced within him again: dismay at seeing his friend so wrecked, his seemingly-indomitable spirit brought so low, and understanding it seemed the only way of easing it in the future. On the other –

Aragorn caught his eye over Legolas’s rounded shoulders. “There is a spare in the other room,” he said quietly. “Now would be the best time to go.”

On the other hand, Gimli thought as he pushed himself up off the bed – eliciting an unpleasant gulping noise and another lunge for the pot on the floor – nothing particularly revealing was likely to happen in his brief absence.

When he returned, his bodily needs satisfied for the moment, Aragorn had taken his place on the bed, rubbing Legolas’s shoulders. The elf’s hair had been drawn back into a loose braid and he was still leaning over the chamber pot, but he had fallen quiet for the moment.

“We ought to get some water into you,” said Aragorn – more for Gimli’s ears than Legolas’s, it seemed. “Gimli, there is a pitcher and a cup on the table. Will you” –

Gimli filled the cup without further bidding and brought it and the pitcher over to the bed, though Legolas waved it away when he offered it. “Thank you, but no,” he croaked.

“Drink it, Legolas,” said Aragorn in the gentle but firm healer’s tone that could not be denied. “It may be worse at first, but you will feel better sooner.”

“Perhaps I would rather not feel better,” said Legolas into his hands. “In fact, both of you – stop being kind to me at once.”

“No,” said Gimli just as Aragorn said, “Why?”

Legolas waved another hand weakly, more a flap of the wrist, as though to brush both of them off. “I hardly deserve it,” he said. “I have caused you enough trouble; leave me to my shame and take no more thought for it.”

“That we will not,” said Gimli, claiming a seat on the other side of Legolas and setting the pitcher on the floor beside his feet. He did not have Aragorn’s knowledge of elven affairs and could not understand Legolas’s longing for the sea, nor could he parse through the full sorrow of all that Legolas had said the night before. He only knew the desolate emptiness he had heard in Legolas’s voice – vast and aching as the sea itself – and the echoes of that sorrow in his suffering this morning. But none of that mattered, not in comparison to Gimli’s own certainty – firm as a stone pillar against the tossing of the waves – that while there was breath in his body his friend would not be left to suffer alone. Not even over something so undignified as the morning after a night of indulgence. “Did I not say weeks ago that I would follow where you led? That includes any dark den you might bury yourself in to hide from the world.”

Legolas made a small choked sound that might have been a chuckle or a sob. After last night, Gimli would have believed either.

“And besides, you are in my chambers,” said Aragorn reasonably. “I imagine you would rather recover yourself here than face my staff and guards?” He nudged Legolas with a slight smile. “Drink the water, Legolas.”

Legolas remained stubbornly still for another moment, then reluctantly lifted one of his hands in Gimli’s general direction. Gimli pressed the cup of water into it, bumping his fingers against Legolas’s knuckles as he did so in his best show of support.

Legolas tilted his head to the side, revealing one bloodshot eye, and gave him a sliver of a smile. Gimli supposed it was the best he could hope for this morning, particularly when the smile twisted into a grimace at the first sip of water. Legolas lowered the cup into his lap and closed his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose.

Gimli lost the fight against his own restraint and reached tentatively over to rest a hand on Legolas’s shoulder. When Legolas did not stiffen or rebuff his touch, but rather relaxed into it, Gimli began to rub slow circles on his shoulder and back. “Talk to us, Legolas,” he said – coaxed, rather, as though Legolas were a shy puppy being cajoled into a mine for his training. “What brought this on? I have never seen you thus before.”

“I hoped you never would,” Legolas said, half-whispered. “I never meant” – He sighed. “It was a foolish whim and I am sorry for it now.”

“But why the whim?” Gimli persisted. “You spoke of the sea, I remember – and of time” –

“Do not remind me,” Legolas sighed, “not now, not this morning.” He stared into his cup like one condemned and then took another sip of water, shuddering a little as he swallowed. “I sought to drown it away instead of speaking about it, and I – suppose I am not surprised it had no effect, but – please.” Perhaps his eyes were merely swollen from drink, but he looked on the verge of weeping again.

“We do not need to speak of it,” Aragorn said. He caught Gimli’s eye again behind Legolas’s back and shook his head, as though warning Gimli not to press. Gimli pressed his lips together to restrain a momentary flare of indignation that Aragorn might think him so thoughtless. It was a tendency, it was true – in him and in dwarves in general – to pursue a problem relentlessly once it had been revealed, not to rest until he had found a solution. But there would be time yet to learn more about Legolas’s suffering; he would not push him further now, not when he was so – fragile?

He shied away from the word instinctively, but _fragile_ seemed right, from the delicate way Legolas held his head to the tremble in his voice to whatever turmoil in his spirit had driven him to break down so completely last night. “No,” he said, adding his voice to Aragorn’s, “no, of course not. But” – Sympathy compelled him, or perhaps desperation; the yearning to lift some of the burden of Legolas’s pain and in doing so free himself – or free them all – “but is there nothing we can do for you now to ease the sorrow?”

Legolas looked over at him again, and yes – the mist in his eyes was certainly a sheen of tears. “Nothing more than this, now or ever,” he said. “Be here, by my side, for as long as you can. You can never” – He gave another audible gulp, though Gimli could not tell if he swallowed down another wave of nausea or the end of the unsaid sentence, then shook his head. “That is as much as anyone can do.”

“And we do it,” said Aragorn softly, and his voice too held an echo to some distant sadness, “for as long as we can.”

It was not enough – it could never be enough – and yet it was as much as they could offer. “We do it,” echoed Gimli. Was this promise more rash or less than the last time he had vowed to follow where Legolas led – now that the future stretched so long before them, now that he knew more than he had then – though still too little, never enough – about what that following might entail?

It did not matter. It had never mattered. He squeezed Legolas’s shoulder, took comfort in the solidness of the muscle he found there, the reassuring warmth of skin beneath his clothing. “ _I_ do it,” he repeated, amended. “I go where you go, my friend. Whatever your sorrows, be comforted by that knowledge.”

“I am,” Legolas whispered, and he leaned into Gimli’s touch. “And for now, it must be enough.”


End file.
